On dreams, punch-ups, occult artifacts and Steampunk

Below, excerpts from a really entertaining interview printed in 2013 on The Chap magazine, issue 70. If you can, get a copy of the magazine! Highly recommended!

 

The Chap is a British humorous men's lifestyle magazine published quarterly, founded in 1999 by Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood. 

For more info, visit the magazine's official site (HERE) and check the Wikipedia entry (here)

The Chap: [...] What, if any, are your recurring dreams?
Alan Moore: I remember when I was about five, my mother had taken me to the cinema - this wasn't a dream, this was real - to see a film by the Dead End Kids. And this particular film had them meeting a man in a dark suit and a bowler hat, who introduced himself as Mr. Boob. When he took his bowler hat off, it revealed two horns sticking out his bald head. I assume his name was a pun on Beelzebub or something like that. I was screaming and under the seat. And for about a year, thereafter, I would have serial dreams in which I was haunted by this pair of horns in a bowler hat. [...]

When was the last time you engaged in a genuine punch-up?
Because I was an unusually tall kid, I used to attract a certain amount of bullying, but the pattern was that I would put up with it for a certain amount of time. And then I would completely lose all rational control and go berserk, and I nearly strangled two of my classmates. I was quite a strong child. And I also - this is a creepy admission - used to work out by squeezing a weighing scale until I could exert my body weight with my thumbs. So there is this young strangler in here just trying to get out. That would perhaps be a good title for an autobiography: Strangler in Paradise or something. [...]

Could you disclose to our readers some of your favourite and most interesting occult artifacts?
My most powerful, without a doubt, is the Random House Dictionary of the English language, unabridged. That is the best book anyone will ever read. To understand language is to understand what is hidden, which is to say, the occult. [...]

Have you ever experimented with any contemporary fashions? EG Steampunk, Young Fogey, GothLoli etc.
I've got nothing against any of that. Steampunks, sometimes at its more committed end, come up with some really useful ideas. I'm friends with people like Margaret Killjoy, who contributed to Dodgem Logic and also, I believe, actually invented and built a desalination unit (which turns seawater into fresh water). So that's useful. One of my favourite jokes is: "How many Steampunks does it take to change a light bulb? It takes two. One to change the light bulb and one to glue an unnecessary watch part to it." [...]

If you can, find a copy of the magazine. Highly recommended.